


Solitary

by flavumetrubrum



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: A lot - Freeform, Gen, Healing Pod Malfunction, Hurt Lance (Voltron), Isolation, Klance - lightly hinted, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Starvation, others are mentioned - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-08 17:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14110173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flavumetrubrum/pseuds/flavumetrubrum
Summary: When the Castle crashes, Lance is released prematurely from a healing pod. This would be okay, probably, if only there was anyone else on the ship.





	Solitary

Day 1

Lance awakens to the much-too-familiar sound of a healing pod preparing to open. His eyes slip open, but instead of seeing his teammates waiting for him in the warm glow of the infirmary, he’s greeted by emptiness. The lights are dim and flickering, and the room seems to pitch dangerously to the left. The opaque door slides open, and his weight shifts immediately forward. He extends a leg to catch himself, but the limb violently protests the movement and collapses under his weight. Sharp pain shoots up through his hip, and he swears he feels bones grinding against each other. He chokes down a cry of pain as his face meets the cold metal floor, his arms moving too sluggishly to save him from the impact.

This isn’t right, he thinks, as he lays there blinking. Black dots dance in his vision. He attempts to lift himself up, and manages to get one leg beneath him as his arms push his aching head away from the floor. He tries to pull the other leg up so that he can kneel, but the slightest movement has him gasping in agony. Definitely broken. Why did the pod release him if his leg is still broken?

He manages to twist around until he’s sitting, staring up at his pod. Oh.

He realizes that the room isn’t what was crooked. Rather, his pod is tilted dangerously to the right, spider web cracks marring the door. Sparks crackled at the end of a severed hose that sticks up from the connection to the floor. That explains the malfunction.

He glances around him, his eyes falling on the pod to his right. Coran is inside, face peaceful and breaths even. Frost colors his eyebrows and the tips of his moustache, and Lance realizes that he’s in cryosleep. His pod is damaged, also, but hasn’t released its occupant. Hm.

Lance suddenly feels naked without his helmet and comms. He has no idea where the rest of their team is. If the infirmary has sustained this much damage, there’s a good chance they’re out in their Lions fighting whatever or whoever it is that did this. He just needs to wait. They’ll be back soon, they’ll find him, and they’ll fix the pods.

Day 2

It’s nearly twenty-four hours before Lance decides the pain in his leg is worth if it means he can find some food and water. He’s been sitting on the floor of the infirmary for a day, surrounding by total and oppressive silence. There’s been no word from the rest of the team, and frantic worry has made a home in his gut. He needs to find them. They might be trapped somewhere else in the Castle.

He slides across the floor toward a supply closet, gritting his teeth and dragging his busted leg behind him. He checks the closet for anything he can use as a crutch, and thanks his lucky stars when he finds a broom. It won’t exactly be comfortable, but he can use this to get around. He breaks the brush off the bottom and uses the long handle to leverage himself to standing. He sways for a moment, his vision darkening ominously, but after a moment it clears and he begins to make his slow way toward the kitchen.

Food and water are his first priority. He won’t be any use to his friends if he passes out in the halls before finding them. His progress is slow and painful, the broom handle serving as more of a cane than a crutch, but he breaths through the pain and keeps moving.

He collapses against the counter when he finally makes it to the kitchen, breathing heavily. Bones shift in his leg, and he’s acutely aware that he just undid any healing the pod managed to perform before it expelled him onto the floor. Once he recovers, he uses the counter as a support and moves to the sink. He twists the cold water handle, and the pipes clang somewhere beneath his feet. He holds his breath, waiting, hoping. After a moment, water spurts from the faucet, and Lance is suddenly so overcome with thirst that he thrusts his face under the stream and drinks straight from the tap.

He drinks until he feels like he’ll burst, then braces himself against the counter and pants, trying to catch his breath. He feels a little less like death now. He tries the food goo hose next, but after multiple attempts he’s still unable to get even a drop of nourishment. Not good. He’ll have to check the storage rooms for whatever else they may have on board. Food slides down the list of priorities, now falling below finding his friends. He needs to check the Castle for any sign of the rest of his team.

He rests for a while, then drinks more water, before setting off down the hallways of the castle. He forgets, sometimes, just how big the ship is, but he becomes painfully aware of its vastness and he sets off to search for his teammates.

Day 3

He’s searched the entire Castle and found no sign of his friends. Red is still in her place in the hangar, just where he left her, but she is completely unresponsive like the rest of the Castle. The other Lions are all missing, which confirms Lance’s worst fear. Wherever the Castle has crashed, it’s without Voltron. His friends could be anywhere. He could be anywhere. He doesn’t know how to get the systems up and running, if it’s even possible, and his situation begins to look more dire. He knows they’ll come for the Castle. He just needs to hunker down and bide his time.

He checks the food stores and finally fills his stomach. If he starts with the perishables, he has more than enough food to last for months. They’ll find him well before food becomes an issue, even without the food goo.

Day 4

He packs some food and water and makes his way back to the infirmary. The silence and emptiness of the Castle is making him twitchy, and even if Coran is in an induced coma Lance misses his company. He also needs to do something about his leg. The pain is constant and hardly bearable, and bones are still shifting in ways that make healing impossible. He needs to splint it until his team gets back and fixes the pods.

It’s agony, trying to position his leg in such a way that he can apply a makeshift splint. Their medbay is seriously lacking in first aid and medical supplies – they rely maybe too heavily on the pods to do their healing for them – but he tears a blanket into strips and removes the legs from a table to fashion a makeshift splint. His leg is broken in three places, he sees now. It’s swollen and purple and misshapen, and he feels sick as he binds the table legs to either side of his limb.

It’s not really adequate, but it’s the best he can do under the circumstances. It’ll suffice until his friends find him.

Day 6

He’s starting to panic. He’s trying really hard not to. He tells stories to Coran, who remains still and silent, and sings his favorite Earth songs. He closes his eyes and recalls every detail of his life before Voltron. He eats the food he brought with him, trying to imagine the flavors of his favorite foods from home. Nothing takes his mind off the fact he’s been here basically alone for almost a week with no word from the team. He wonders if they’re dead, but pushes the thought to the back of his mind. They’re coming. They have to be.

Day 8

He can’t stay here doing nothing any longer. He doesn’t want to move – his leg throbs in time with his heartbeat and he finds Coran’s presence comforting, even if the man may as well be made of stone. But he needs to find his armor, his comms, and his bayard. If the others can’t find him, he needs to tell them where they are. But that brings up another question. Where the hell is he?

According to the view from the Bridge, when he was there a few days ago, they’ve crash landed either on a small ice planet or a large asteroid. It’s barren and lifeless. Not that it matters – with the power down he has no way of telling where in the universe they’re located. And the doors are all sealed shut, even if he wanted to go exploring on his mangled leg. Which he doesn’t.

If his armor is still functional, he should be able to send a distress signal. If he’s really lucky, maybe his friends will answer him on the comms.

He finds his armor in the hangar next to Red. He hadn’t even thought to look when he’d been here last. He tries the helmet first, but there’s no response to his repeated calls for help. Not even static. Dead silence. He checks his bayard next, and although he has no reason to suspect any danger, his heart lifts when he sees that it’s functional. He clips it to his pod suit and presses the button on his left gauntlet to activate the distress signal.

Nothing. No light, no beep to indicated that it’s working. His hope wavers, and he almost lets out a sob, but he chokes it down and places the gauntlet back in the pile of his armor. He can’t wallow. It won’t help anything.

If not the armor, maybe Red will respond if he can reach her. He settles himself onto the ground stiffly, his broken leg stretched out in front of him. He sucks in a breath as it spasms, bones grinding even with the splint holding the limb straight. He breathes through the pain before reaching out with his mind for the bright glow of Red’s consciousness. It’s not there, but he’s not surprised. Red has been shut down since Lance woke up. It won’t be easy to reach her. But he’s not going to give up. She may be his only hope to reach his friends.

Day 10

He spends two days in the hangar searching for Red before hunger and loneliness drive him back toward the living quarters and Coran’s pod. He still talks to himself, but he doesn’t pay any attention to the words that spill from his own lips. The noise is comforting, but the silence that always answers is disconcerting. He considers stopping by his room for a change of clothes, but he put the splint over the pod suit and the thought of taking it off even more a few minutes sickens him. He limps past the sleeping quarters and stops by the food stores before settling himself back in the medbay. He leans his back against Coran’s pod, ignoring the cold that seeps into his back, and he sleeps.

Day 14

It’s been two weeks. Every day, more of his hope slips away. If his friends were alive and well, they would’ve come by now. Even without power, even without his distress signal, surely Pidge and Allura would have come up with a way to track the Castle, or Red. His team is too smart, too determined, and too loyal to just leave him here if they were capable of looking.

It leads him to a heartbreaking conclusion. Whatever lured them out of the Castle that day two weeks ago, whatever had damaged the giant ship and sent it crashing into a barren wasteland, has either captured or killed the rest of Team Voltron. He’s helpless to look for them, and they obviously aren’t looking for him.

Day 17

He lets himself succumb to grief for a time. He cries, both for his lost friends and for himself, and he lies without moving on the cold, hard floor until he can no longer ignore the aches that have set into his bones or the hunger gnawing in his stomach. He has to make a choice. He can either continue to lie here, wasting away until he disappears, or he can try to do something, anything, to improve his situation.

He finally drags himself back up, stowing away his despair and steeling himself for what could be the rest of his life spent on this dead ship. His leg still protests every movement, but he thinks the pain is less sharp than it was when he was first expelled from the pod.

If he’s going to make the medbay his home, he can’t keep living on the floor like this. He needs to bring in a bed, or something close, and he needs to bring the food closer. His heart flutters in his chest. How much food did he have? It had seemed like more than enough when he’d thought his friends were coming, but now he realizes that he may not last very long at all. There’s maybe enough for eight or nine months if he eats well, twice as long if he’s conservative. So much for the rest of his life. The rest of his life just became a lot shorter.

Day 25

He moves slowly, but eventually he has something like a home set up in the infirmary. He has a sleeping area set up, he’s moved in a month’s worth of food, and he uses the sink as both a source of drinking water and as a makeshift bath. He only leaves to use the restroom down the hall.

He talks less with every passing day, even his own voice doing very little to ease his loneliness. He also discovers a new enemy creeping and making him miserable – boredom. He’s scavenged books from the living quarters, and even taken a handheld video game Pidge had stashed in her room. He has his music, but the battery is low and he saves that for when he’s truly desperate. Even with these distractions, there’s a lot of time and silence to fill, and he spends too much time staring at Coran or studying the room around him.

He would even take physical exercise as a welcome diversion, but his leg rules that out as an option. It seems to be healing, the bones fusing back together, but even without medical training he can tell it’s healing all wrong. There are lumps where the bones used to grind against each other, and his leg seems to bend outward halfway down his thigh and then back in again just under his knee. It’s disgusting, and painful, and he knows that if he tries to walk on it he’ll be right back where he was when this whole thing started.

When he gets really bored, he wanders the castle, using a hoverboard he found as a sort of wheelchair. It’ll run out of battery eventually, but for now it keeps him moving when he gets stir crazy. He makes periodic rounds, checking doors and air locks and trying to get through to Red. He always spares a glance at the distress signal on his gauntlet, still on that pile in the hangar, and it’s always dead and silent. He expects nothing else, but he can’t help but look.

Nothing changes, ever, and the boredom presses in on Lance like a physical weight.

Day 30

One month. One month he’s been alone. This is the longest he’s ever spent alone, and he thinks he might be going crazy. He spends the day recalling each of his friend’s faces, how they looked the last time he had seen them. It takes a little more effort than he likes to remember their features. He tries to conjure their voices, but like his, they seem to have disappeared. He tries his family next, and is dismayed when it’s even harder to recall their faces and the sounds of their voices. He hasn’t seen them in so long, and he supposes he’ll never see them again.

Day 45

He tries putting weight on his leg, and while pain shoots through the bones at the added pressure, they don’t shift or crack under his weight. He decides to still play it safe, but he’s heartened that at least he’ll soon be able to move about freely. He’s not sure what he’ll do with the freedom, but he’s tired of being trapped in his slipping mind and yearns to run until he forgets where he is and how alone he is.

He’s always loved running, in spite of his definite lazy streak. He’s fast, the fastest on the team, actually, and when he runs it feels like everything else melts away. He misses that feeling, that emptiness, and he can’t wait to run the halls of the Castle.

Day 60

When he reaches two months alone on the Castle, he removes his splint and walks on both legs. His right leg aches, the muscles atrophied and the bones deformed, and it feels _wrong_. The way his bones are aligned is unnatural, and he can’t walk without a pronounced limp. He walks circles around the medbay until his leg collapses, and while he feels a small thrill of victory at the accomplishment, a larger part of him breaks. If he can’t walk without a limp, how is he supposed to run?

Day 70

The more he walks, the less pronounced his limp becomes. He acclimates to the strange feeling of the new position of his bones, but even so he never quite loses the falter in his gait. His leg always aches, but he’s become accustomed to the pain and almost welcomes it now. It means he’s still alive, even when he doesn’t feel like it.

Day 100

He doesn’t stop by the hangar anymore. Red is dead, and so are his friends, so why should he bother checking the distress signal? His food supplies are dwindling, and as he cuts back his rations, so is he. Without the rigorous training demanded of Team Voltron, his muscles are wasting away. He’s always been skinny anyway, but with the meager rations he’s allowing himself, he’s turning into nothing but skin and bones.

He doesn’t bother much with hygiene anymore, either. His beard grows, prickly and itchy. He’s never grown facial hair before. His hair gets longer, becoming unruly, but he doesn’t care. He brushes his teeth, still, because he’s not an animal, and he bathes every few days, but he doesn’t have the energy for the extensive self-care routines he’d once been so proud of.

He doesn’t try the doors anymore, either, knowing they won’t budge. The Castle will likely never open again, and he decides that’s okay, because this is his grave and graves shouldn’t be disturbed.

Day 150

He gets desperate. Really and truly desperate to see and speak to another person. He paces the medbay for hours, wrestling with himself. Finally, he comes to a stop in front of Coran’s pod. The Altean looks so peaceful, blissfully unaware of what’s happening with the other occupant of the Castle. Lance is being selfish, he knows. If he gets Coran out of his pod, he’s sentencing him to the same fate Lance has been dreading this whole time. They’ll both starve to death, and twice as fast as Lance will alone. He could let Coran keep slumbering peacefully for eternity, never knowing pain or hunger like Lance experiences every day. But Lance is losing his mind, he can feel it slipping, and he would trade his good leg for five minutes of conversation with someone, _anyone_. He’s truly fond of Coran, and misses him as acutely as the rest of his team, but it being Coran in particular is simply an added bonus.

After a brief internal struggle, Lance gives in to his own desires and begins messing with the pod. He tries opening it normally first, but the pod doesn’t respond to his commands. Next, he grabs the first thing within arm’s reach – one of the table legs he’d used for his splint – and starts beating at the opaque door with all his meager strength. Nothing. Next, he tries to knock the whole thing off its pedestal, hoping that it will react like his did all that time ago if its connections are compromised.

He tries for hours, cycling through failed attempts, and eventually he crumbles into a heap at the base of the pod, defeated. He sobs, then, the first time in months, and beats weakly at the pod with his fist. “Please, Coran,” he begs, his voice rough with disuse. “I need you. You have to wake up. I can’t do this on my own anymore, I can’t.” He spends the rest of the day like that, and maybe the night, too, but eventually he manages to pick himself back up.

It takes some time, but eventually he’s grateful that his attempts were unsuccessful. It had been a moment of weakness, and he’s glad he hasn’t dragged his friend into this hell along with him. But it does nothing to ease his loneliness, and he slips a little further.

Day 203

He still places a notch in the wall every day, like time has any meaning. He started back around the time he realized his friends were gone for good, and it’s become a habit. 203. It’s been over six months.

He hums a few bars of a song he’s forgotten the words to. Somebody used to sing that song – Shiro, maybe? Which one was Shiro?

Right, he remembers. The tall one.

Day 271

He starts hearing things. First, it’s Red, and he’s so overjoyed to hear her rumble from the hangar that he literally trips over himself trying to get there. He limps all the way to his Lion, as close as he’s gotten to an all-out sprint since the pod, and as he rounds the corner he beams up at her like she’s the sun in his sky.

It takes him several moments to realize that she’s just as she’s been for months, silent, unmoving, eyes dead. She’s not roaring like he’d heard, and the embers of her consciousness are still missing from his mind.

He doesn’t believe it at first, but eventually he comes to the conclusion that he’d imagined the whole thing. He nearly breaks down, but he can’t summon the energy it will take to cry. He turns to leave, his leg throbbing from his mad dash here, and he freezes.

There’s a quiet, steady beep coming from somewhere near his feet. He used to spend days waiting to hear that very sound, and now he holds his breath, hoping it’s true. He reaches down to where he knows he left his gauntlet, and eyes the distress signal on the wrist. The display isn’t flashing blue like it should be if the beacon is active. Maybe the light’s broken, he thinks, but the hope is gone even as he thinks it. What are the chances that his beacon suddenly activated after all this time? He throws the gauntlet at the wall, and it bounces off with a crunch. The beeping continues, and he realizes that this, too, is in his head.

His mind is playing tricks on him, preying on his weakness with his broken hopes. He stalks away from the hangar, and the beeping follows him all the way back to the infirmary. It’s like a steady tick at the back of his mind, mocking him for still hanging on to some shred of hope that they’re coming for him.

Day 321

Even the faces are gone, now. He has the names, but that’s all that’s left of his family and friends. He tries to remember what they’re like, and some details are still there. Shiro was the leader. He was older than the rest of the humans. Allura was Altean, like Coran, but all he can seem to remember about her is warmth. Hunk was… he was important… Hunk was his best friend. He should remember more about Hunk. There was the little one, the one named after a bird. Was that right? Pigeon? No, they just called her Pidge. She was smart. And Keith. He’s particularly distressed when all he can remember is the color red. He feels a unique longing when he thinks of that name, but he can’t place why.

Day 349

Food supplies are dwindling, but he can’t seem to bring himself to care. He goes days a time without eating sometimes, and it’s been a long time since he felt the pangs of hunger. He’s been starved for too long now. It doesn’t hurt anymore.

He stares at his hands sometimes, awed by how foreign they look to him. Skin stretches tight over knobby bones, cracked and dry. His fingernails are weak and flaky, always broken down to the quick. These hands belong to a stranger, but he supposes he is a stranger to himself these days.

He glances in a mirror for the first time in probably months, and he should be shocked by what he sees. Instead, he stares at his own reflection like he’s staring at the wall. He studies it, no feeling or connection stirred by the sight. His face is sunken and hollow, his once healthy skin sallow. He’s paler than he’s ever been under the scraggly beard that hides half his face. His eyes are dull and listless as they roam over the peaks and valleys of his sharp features.

A memory stirs, and he frowns. He looks vaguely like the leader had when he’d come back from… where had he been? He shrugs and moves on.

Day 365

He stares at the notches on the wall. One year. One year since he’d spoken to another person. One year since he’d felt fresh air or sunlight on his face.

Grief stirs inside him where it’s lain dormant for months. He hasn’t had the energy for emotions in a long time, but this day seems important. The beeping sound is back in the far reaches of his mind, mocking him. It’s been a year, and they’re still not coming. He’s still slowly starving to death trapped in a giant castle ship, all alone. Nothing has changed.

He had a birthday at some point during that year. So did his dead friends and his distant family. There were holidays and anniversaries, and he missed them all. He runs his finger along the notch he’s just etched into the wall. Funny how such a tiny symbol could send his carefully constructed defenses to the ground. A tear falls from his lashes. He imagines the red one… what was his name?... giving him a hard time for crying over missed Earth holidays in the face of everything else he’s dealing with. Didn’t they used to give each other a hard time? Or was that one of the others?

He can’t remember.

Day 382

He sits in front of the pod, staring up at its sleeping occupant. He taps his finger against his chin repeatedly, sighing in frustration. He can’t remember the name of his only companion, and he finds this distressing. It’s one thing to forget things about the ones who disappeared, but this one is right in front of him, even if he’s not exactly alive.

He’s spending less time in his home in the medbay, and less time with the one in the pod. He knows every detail of his face, has memorized the exact way his moustache curls and the exact placement of his hair, but he’s forgotten his name.

 Day 399

He trips and bashes his head open on the corner of the kitchen counter. He thinks he trips, anyway, but he’s been feeling light-headed lately and maybe he just blacked out. Either way, he lies stunned on the kitchen floor for a while, blinking up at the dark ceiling, feeling warm blood seep from his wound and slide down the side of his face.

He considers the possibility of never getting up, of simply lying there until whatever’s left of him dies. His head aches, a spiking pain behind his eye that stretches all the way to the base of his skull. He wonders how much damage he’s done, but there’s no way to find out. No more scans, no more healing pods. He forgets why he came to the kitchen in the first place.

Day 400

He spends the night on the kitchen floor. By the time he decides he might as well die somewhere else, his head has stopped bleeding. It hasn’t stopped aching. He finds his footing after two attempts to rise. He had come to find something to eat, he remembers now. He had finished the food in the medbay a few days ago. That explains why he’d been so dizzy. He’s beyond his normal level of starvation. His body is shutting down.

It doesn’t exactly strike him as a bad thing, but some small part of him that hasn’t given up yet drives him to find food. He checks his supplies. He’s done well conserving his food, but he’s got maybe six months left at his current rate of consumption. He can’t really afford to eat any less. Six months, then. That’s his new lifespan.

Day 438

He adjusts his calculations when the water starts running low. At least, he assumes that’s what’s happening. The water pressure drops noticeably, and sometimes it sputters out completely. He vaguely remembers something about the ship recycling the water supply, but he thinks they also replenished it when they got the opportunity. He drinks a lot of water – it makes sense it would start to run out at some point.

He finds the main water tanks, and although they’re far from running dry, they’re definitely running below capacity. He’s not sure how quickly he’s using it up. Maybe it’ll last longer than his food, maybe he’ll die of thirst before he succumbs to his slow starvation. He decides he doesn’t care. What’s one or two fewer months when you have an expiration date, anyway?

Day 467

He stares at his wall of notches, not sure if he’s already marked today. Did he sleep last night? Or whatever passed for a night for him, anyway? He glances at the Earth clock he keeps by his wall. What was the date the last time he looked? He doesn’t remember. He keeps track of days by the number since he was ejected from the healing pod. He doesn’t remember sleeping, so he doesn’t carve another line in the wall. 467 sounds right.

Close enough.

Day 498

He sits in one of the chairs at the dining table. It’s the first time he’s been in this room since that first search of the Castle so many months ago. He sits in what he thinks is his chair. He doesn’t really remember ever eating here, but this is where muscle memory had lead him.

How many times had he sat here during his other life, eating among friends? Eating his fill? He glares at the empty chairs. There had been others here, he was sure of it. He couldn’t recall their names. He couldn’t recall anything about them, really.

If he’s being honest, he’s not sure they ever even existed. He feels as if he’s trying to remember a dream.  Was there really anything before this nothingness?

Day 508

He limps into the infirmary and is almost startled by the face in the pod. He forgets, sometimes, that there’s another person here with him. He thinks it’s a person, anyway. Maybe it’s nothing more than a statue, or a figment of his imagination. He used to talk to it, he remembers that.

It talked back to him once, but it was the same as the beeping and the roaring and the other voices. It wasn’t real.

He walks closer and stares at the face. Something stirs inside him, and he knows there’s something important about this face. At one point, it had been his tether to reality. Or maybe he had imagined that, too.

He decides to stay in the medbay that night, something he’s been doing much less in recent months. He’d begun to feel caged by these four walls, taking to roaming the castle and sleeping wherever the desire struck him. Tonight, though, the room feels familiar and comforting. He sleeps at the foot of the pod (Statue? Didn’t it have a name?), and he sleeps better than he has in months.

Day 521

He doesn’t walk as much as he used to. The effort has become too much and his limbs twitch and shake most of the time. He barely notices the pain from his crippled leg anymore – the pain in his other has grown to match. He spends most of his time lying listlessly in the infirmary, trying to remember the name of that goddamn statue. He doesn’t understand why it’s so important, but he knows it is.

He’s moved the rest of his food supply into the infirmary so he doesn’t have to leave unless he wants to. A few months left, at best. He decides to start eating more. There was no point in conserving his food if he was going to die of starvation before he ran out.

Day 530

He feels quite a bit better now that he’s eating more, but it’s hard to ignore how quickly he’s going through what’s left. It’s only a matter of time now. It was always only a matter of time.

He’d thought he’d come to terms with his imminent demise, but there still must be some life left in him because the closer his end creeps, the more the idea of it turns his stomach. In a past life, he dreamt of dying peacefully, old and in his sleep. He even dreamt of dying a glorious death in battle, laying down his life for those he loved. This was never what he had imagined.

Maybe it was what he deserved.

Day 544

He dreams, for the first time he can remember, and there are flashes of colors and faces that fill his heart with joy. Voices weave in and out of the images, and he calls out their names, names that feel foreign on his tongue.

He wakes with a start, and tries desperately to hold on to the images, to the names, but they’re gone as quickly as they came. Even though they’ve been gone a long time, he feels this new loss keenly, and he nearly weeps. Losing his friends was one thing – losing the memories feels especially cruel.

The statue was there, he remembers that much. Not a statue, then. It really was a person from his previous life. It was a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.

Day 562

The beeping is back again. It’s louder now and it dances on his frayed nerves. He grits his teeth and tries to ignore it, but it’s coming from inside his own head and there’s no escaping it. He screams to try to drown it out, but his feral cries only make it worse. He throws things, anything he can get his hands on, but the taunting continues.

He knows nobody is coming. He’s known it with absolute certainty for as long as he can remember. Why is his mind still taunting him? There’s no hope left to mock.

Day 579

He chews listlessly on a piece of jerky. He’s not sure what type of meat it is, but he does know that it’s the last piece of meat left on the ship. He tries to enjoy it, to savor every bite, but the flavor is lost on him. He might as well be chewing on rubber.

He offers the rest to the frozen man in the pod, knowing he won’t react, but it makes him feel better for some reason. When the frozen man doesn’t reach out for his offering, he shrugs and chews on another bite.

He glances at his wall, overwhelmed by the number of notches he’s carved. How many is it now? He doesn’t care enough to count. He’s running out of space on the wall, but he’s running out of days to mark, so it doesn’t matter.

Day 585

He decides to walk through the entire Castle, one last time. He’s down to maybe a week’s worth of food, but something drives him to visit the halls and the rooms of the ship. He hobbles around, using the walls for support, and wonders even as he’s doing it why he’s exploring the ship.

He has nobody to say goodbye to, so maybe he’s saying goodbye to the only thing he has. He makes sure to say goodbye to the giant red cat. He doesn’t remember why it’s important, but he knows that it is.

He spares a glance at the beacon. Still dead.

He visits every corner of the ship, stopping in the places that call to him, even though he can’t remember why they feel important.

When he’s done, he takes his familiar place at the foot of the pod.  His final resting place.

Day 592

He consumes the last of his food, a flavorless ration bar. He chews it listlessly, understanding with utter finality that this is the last food he will ever eat. How long will he last now? Days? No more. He has not reserves left, nothing to fall back on. He decides it’s for the best. He’s ready to rest. Maybe he’ll see his friends once more, if only in his dreams.

Day 593

There’s a clanging somewhere outside the ship. It draws him out of a deep sleep he had thought might be his last. At first he ignores it, being long accustomed to strange sounds. But it becomes more insistent, more urgent, and in spite of himself, in spite of his resolve never to leave the medbay again, he grabs his bayard and limps toward the source of the noise.

The sound leads him to the front door, which doesn’t make any sense. That door hasn’t opened in over a year and a half. No matter how many times he had thrown himself against it, screaming and raving, in the early days, it never budged. There have never been any indications of life around the Castle. He stands there and stares, weapon held loosely in his hands, uncomprehending.

He doesn’t feel alarm until the door actually begins to open. He swings the weapon up and trains it on the slowly widening gap in the entrance. How, after all this time, was the door finally opening?

Several figures slip through the gap when it’s wide enough, and he trains his sight on the largest of them. “Who’s there?” he rasps, and oh, god, is that his voice? He doesn’t remember the last time he spoke, but he knows his voice isn’t supposed to be that ragged. “What do you want?”

Someone gasps. In the dim lighting, he can’t make out any faces, but something about the sound stirs something in his chest. Was that…?

“Hello? Lance? Coran? Are you there?”

The voice is hesitant, and it takes a moment for him to place the names. One of those is his name, and the other… the man in the pod! Of course! “Hello?” the voice speaks again. There’s a flash of memory. He… Lance… blinks in bewilderment, his gun instantly lowering. “Hunk?” There’s a whirring sound before the area is suddenly illuminated, and he squints against the light. When he recovers, he’s met with the startled gazes of his long lost teammates.

They stare, uncomprehending, at what’s become of him. He returns their scrutiny, long lost memories breaking free of their cages. His eyes flick over each of their faces, confusion mixing with the sheer joy at knowing they’re alive and that he’s saved.

It’s the red one… Keith, he’s sure of it... who finally breaks the oppressive silence, stepping forward with a hand outstretched. “Lance?” he asks, so uncertain, and Lance’s eyes lock onto his. He drinks in the sight of his face like it’s cold water on a hot day. He never thought he’d see that face again. “Is that you?”

Lance’s bayard clatters to the ground and he takes a halting step forward. The little one flinches – Pidge, oh, Pidge – and he halts. He glances down at himself. Oh. He guesses the sight of him could be horrifying to his friends. He doesn’t think much about his physical changes anymore, but now that he considers it, he’s a specter of who he used to be. He’s still wearing his body suit from the pod, the one that spat him out all those months ago. It now hangs loosely over his emaciated frame. He scratches at his beard absentmindedly – he hasn’t looked in a mirror in ages, but he knows his beard and long hair are unruly and dirty. Still, they look like they’ve seen a ghost, and they should understand how long it’s been, that of course he’d be changed after a year and a half alone and trapped. “It’s me,” he forces out between chapped lips. “Wasn’t expecting company. Would’ve showered.” His lame attempt at humor has no affect on their shocked faces.

“What the hell?” Hunk’s voice is strangled, but it’s music to Lance’s ears. “What happened to you?”

Tears spring unbidden to his eyes. He’s so fucking happy to see them all, but it’s overwhelming. Instead of answering his question, he counters it with one of his own. He doesn’t really mean to say it, but unexpected bitterness wells up in his chest and it slips out. “What the hell took you so long?”

Keith is suddenly right in front of him, and Lance would’ve stumbled backwards if not for the vice-like grip the other man now has on his upper arms. Their eyes meet, and Keith’s are also full of tears. “It’s been a day and a half. How could this have happened to you in a day and a half?”

The deck tilts around Lance, stars swimming in and out of his vision. He gapes like a fish, trying to form words. Finally, he gasps, “It’s been nearly two years.”

Confusion clouds Keith’s face, and he glances back toward the others. Shiro finally steps forward, literally shaking himself out of a stupor, and comes to stand beside Keith. Having humans so close to him after all this time is nice, but it’s a lot. He sees Hunk take an unsteady step forward, but he hesitates. Pidge and Allura hang back by the door, grasping hands and staring at him in dismay. What don’t they understand? It took them all this time to find him, but they think he shouldn’t be this messed up? That’s not on him.

Shiro’s speaking to him, and Lance’s eyes snap to his face. His features are calm, but there’s a storm behind his eyes. Still, his presence is comforting. Until he speaks. “Lance, what do you mean? We lost the castle less than 48 hours ago. It took us a day to lock onto your signal, but we got here as quickly as we could.”

“Why are you saying that?” he whispers, and a tear slips down his cheek. “Stop saying that. It’s been months, I’ve been… I’ve been here alone for months….”

Strong arms slip around his shoulders, and his face is pressed against a warm neck. Keith. Lance sucks in a shaky breath. His legs buckle beneath him, but he’s caught from behind. He hears urgent voices surrounding him, all of them familiar and loved, but they sound like they’re under water. Is this it? Has he finally cracked, is this one last cruel trick from his fractured mind? Is he so desperate to be found, to be less alone, that he’s conjured the phantoms of his dead friends from the depths of lost memories? There are still warm arms pressed against him, and he supposes he doesn’t really care. He lets his eyes fall closed. He wonders if they’ll still be here if he wakes up.

 

 


End file.
